


Swine Before Pearls

by TheAlchemistsDaughter



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Oswald is sleeping with someone else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 04:23:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlchemistsDaughter/pseuds/TheAlchemistsDaughter
Summary: Loosely set during S5 when Ed and Oswald are friends.Comfortable and well-established in his citadel, Oswald finally feels secure enough to 'see to his needs'... and hires a man to be his lover.A man he dresses like Ed.Ed does not approve at all.





	Swine Before Pearls

Ed was used to letting himself into Oswald’s citadel these days. Everyone knew the two of them were… _friends_ again, so Oswald’s guards didn’t try to stop him as he made his way through to Oswald’s office. He didn’t knock, Oswald was always happy to see him, and when Ed was excited about something minor courtesies like that bored him.

He came to a screeching halt, however, his shoes slipping on the polished marble, at the scene that greeted him. Immediately Oswald began shoving the stranger away, but Ed knew what he’d seen. Oswald had been off-balance, half-leaning, half-sitting on his desk, with a tall thin man dressed in green pushing him back and kissing him.

“Ed!” Oswald shrieked at the sight of him. Then he flapped at his companion “Get off! Go away!”

The stranger stepped back, looking at Ed, allowing Ed to see him properly, and he had the disorienting feeling of looking in a mirror, which was not always a pleasant experience at the best of times. The man was tall, thin, with black hair cut just like Ed’s, and thick-rimmed glasses just like Ed’s, and he wore green skinny jeans with a matching green shirt, and a black tie. His face was sharp-boned too, though it held none of Ed’s intelligence or wit.

“Holy shit, is that the Riddler?” he said.

Ed’s eyes narrowed as his jaw clenched. He did not mind Oswald having company of course, but he did mind being exposed against his will to the rank and file who almost certainly could not be trusted, and he was aware of how dangerously irrational Oswald became when he thought himself in love.

“Leave us,” Oswald ordered, straightening his tie and smoothing his clothes, flicking glances at Ed.

“Alright,” the man shrugged, not showing Oswald the respect he was owed. He had a Narrows accent if Ed was correct, which he always was. The stranger left through the same door Ed had come in through.

Ed fixed Oswald with a glare and went to sit in one of the chairs facing his desk.

“Hello Ed, what brings you here?” Oswald said with a brisk smile, waddling to take his seat behind his desk.

“Who was that?” he demanded.

“Oh, that?” Oswald pointed at the door, flustered and stalling for time. “That was Eric.”

“And _who_ is Eric?”

“He is a, er, young man I am… employing to, uh… entertain me.”

“Oswald, you cannot be serious!” Ed hissed.

“Oh, why not!? _Why not!?_” Oswald yelled, pitching a fit as he always did when he was pushed. “I have needs! And I’m finally in a position to see to them. Everyone does it! Do you think Don Falcone didn’t have his mistresses? Barbara and Tabitha? Even Jeremiah has that- that- _lunatic_!”

“And do you think they’re trustworthy? Is he? Men like us have no room for love, Oswald, it is only a weakness!”

“Oh, you say that until the next simpering librarian comes along!”

“Don’t talk about her that way!”

Oswald held up a hand, stopping their fight before it could gather much steam. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Ed took a breath to calm down.

“I don’t want to be alone, Edward, and unlike you I don’t believe I have to be. Why not pay a man to keep me company if I want to? I don’t love him, I assure you. He knows what will happen to him if he snoops. I don’t tell him anything I shouldn’t. I have it under control.”

“Control…” Ed sneered. There was no such thing when it came to Oswald and his emotions.

“Yes. It’s only… physical.”

That still rankled, something sharp and vindictive twisting in his chest. “He looks awfully familiar,” he groused.

Oswald could be a good liar, when he was not making it up on the spot. His eyelids fluttered and his expression changed, a shutter of fake innocence drawing down. “Hm? Does he?”

“Yes. Green was always _my_ signature colour.” Ed did not want to gesture to the green suit he was wearing that day, as if he had copied the interloper and not the other way around, but it spoke for itself.

Oswald sighed through his nose and looked down at his desk, shuffling papers. “Oh that. Don’t worry about that.”

“You’re telling me you haven’t found a man who looks _passably_ like me, and dressed him up in clothes I would wear?”

Oswald slapped his hand down on the papers, staring at Ed. “Don’t flatter yourself. Maybe I just have a type.”

“A type?”

“Yes, a type. They exist.”

Ed snorted and looked away, but he didn’t like that answer, not at all. He would rather Oswald have admitted that he still had feelings for him, and had dressed up an imposter to warm his bed, than to pretend his love for Ed, the thing they had killed and betrayed each other over, was nothing more than an aesthetic fancy. “He won’t have my intelligence,” he insisted.

“Oh no, not at all. He’s as thick as a brick, but in some ways it’s refreshing. I don’t have to answer a riddle to get into _his_ pants.”

Another lance. He had thought Oswald enjoyed his riddles. “No, just stick a twenty in his waistband, I presume.”

“Please, I have some standards. It’s at least a fifty.” Oswald smiled to let Ed know he was joking, but it wasn’t wholly kind, not like it sometimes was when everything fell away and Oswald let Ed see all the way down to the tiny, shrivelled, neglected and black but still beating heart of him.

“You’ve always had expensive taste. Nothing but the finer things,” Ed said, allowing himself to play along for a moment. He didn’t get repartee like this from anyone else. “Does he even need those glasses?”

“No, but I like what they do for his cheekbones.”

“I bet his name isn’t even Eric.”

Oswald looked at the door contemplatively, as if Eric was still there to read it off. “That, I believe, is real. A happy coincidence, I suppose. Now what did you want to talk to me about?”

Ed allowed Oswald to steer them towards business instead of pleasure, but this new revelation tickled in the back of his mind for the rest of their conversation, for the rest of his day, and the day after that. Oswald was sleeping with someone. Oswald was sleeping with someone he paid for it. Oswald was sleeping with someone poor and stupid, the perfect candidate to be exploited by their enemies.

And Oswald was sleeping with someone who looked like Ed, who he dressed like Ed.

It niggled at him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t figure it out, of course he could. It was obvious, it was _brazen_. Oswald was fucking – Ed could barely bring himself to say his name – _Eric_ because he wanted to fuck Ed. Even if he was no longer in love with Ed, which he had thought was the case, perhaps that very death of love had allowed Oswald to pursue this outlet for his sexual frustrations. _Because_ he was no longer in love with Ed, he _could_ fuck someone else.

And if he had his choice, he wanted to fuck Ed.

It just went around and around. Maybe he was just getting it out of his system. His feelings for Ed had been… intense, after all, and certainly hadn’t concluded the way Oswald had hoped, so maybe this was his way of finding closure. A sub-par substitute Ed would allow Oswald to get over him, perhaps to transplant some of Eric’s flaws onto what he imagined Ed would be like as a lover and therefore lose interest in Ed when he inevitably lost interest in Eric.

That rankled, the thought that he would be tarred with _Eric’s_ brush, when the man was undoubtedly a moron, insipid, vapid, dull… But surely it would all be for the best in the end. Oswald would be able to move on once and for all. If he indeed had lingering feelings for Ed, then Eric was a safer outlet. Ed appreciated, he supposed, that Oswald was trying to protect their new friendship, shield it from what had slaughtered it the last time. Oswald could expunge all his emotions on the mannequin, and maintain pleasant terms with Ed, who really mattered.

There was the secondary, or perhaps that should be primary, threat of Eric spying on Oswald. That may be more pressing than the emotional web being weaved. That man had already proved he would do anything for money, and he certainly would not stand up to much torture, Ed could just _tell_. No matter what Oswald said, he was not a good judge of character when it came to people who were kind to him. Taking precautions was all well and good, but Ed could only imagine what could be extracted from Oswald when physical pleasure was the weapon. His vulnerability to sentiment was why he needed Ed.

And yet it was also part of the problem. Ed knew he couldn’t simply go over there and tell Oswald to get rid of Eric because he was a weakness. Oswald would accuse him of being unfeeling, frigid, or worse, jealous. He needed proof.

So he got to work. Research was a strength of his after all, even with Gotham’s spotty records-keeping when it came to the Narrows, and what records there were being routinely destroyed, stolen, altered, etc. Annoyingly, Eric seemed to be exactly what Oswald thought he was: an impoverished, under-educated, opportunistic man born and bred in the Narrows. He had a few arrests for shoplifting, breaking and entering, aiding and abetting, resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, and looting, but who in Gotham didn’t? His mugshot showed him with long light-brown hair, so presumably Oswald had made him cut and dye it.

Even more annoyingly, though Ed insisted to himself it didn’t matter, he was three years younger than Ed.

It was nothing he could take to Oswald. Eric didn’t even seem to have held any gang allegiance prior to his time in Oswald’s citadel. His neighbourhood was on a territorial fringe, and had changed hands four times in his lifetime, and was currently being tussled over by two nobody street gangs. He had, for a while, owed fealty to Lee by address alone, but that did nothing to soften Ed towards him.

So Ed decided the best thing he could do to protect Oswald and his empire from total destruction was to go to his citadel and insert himself in the manner of a human shield. If he was present, it meant less alone time for Oswald to potentially spill secrets, another guard to keep an eye on important papers.

His mind made up, Ed wasted no time in making his way to Oswald’s citadel, rushing in as he always did. When no one was present in the office, he continued up the stairs to Oswald’s private suite. The fire had been lit in the sitting room, and Oswald sat in his robe in the armchair with his silver coffee set and the morning’s newspaper.

“Ed! What are you doing here? Has something happened?” He struggled to his feet, concern open on his face, and he glanced back at the doors as if he expected men with guns to rush through.

Ed opened his mouth to answer, but then movement from the couch caught his eye, and he watched Eric sit up sleepily. How had Ed missed the feet sticking out over the arm? He wasn’t wearing his glasses and his black hair wasn’t styled correctly if he wanted to impersonate Ed, but then Oswald’s was a mess too. The whole scene smacked of familiarity and domesticity.

Ed narrowed his eyes. “Oh. You.”

Oswald glanced at his lover. “Eric, go to the bedroom. I need to talk to Ed.”

Eric looked at Oswald like a dumb child, but he rolled off the sofa and padded across the room to the other set of doors. Ed watched him go. The man was wearing nothing but green silk pyjama pants that hung low on his hips, and Ed was annoyed to see he was in better shape than him, marginally, with more muscle definition on his stomach and arms.

“Ed, what are you doing here? It’s not even seven,” Oswald said, bringing him back to him, and making him realise he had forgotten to sleep. That usually only happened when he was consumed with something important. Odd.

“I- I thought we could spend the day together.” He went to take Eric’s place of the sofa. He looked for a coffee cup for him, but there wasn’t an extra. Eric’s sat on the table, half-full, and Ed considered it, swirling the coffee as he peered at it before putting it down in disgust. “I feel like plotting something.”

Oswald smiled. “Really? What did you have in mind?”

Ed waved his hand. “A bank… or maybe a museum.” He could rob a bank in his sleep, it would be easy to come up with half a plan to convince Oswald that was really why he had come. He looked over his shoulder at the door to the bedroom.

“Do you need money, Ed?” Oswald prompted, his tone solicitous like a mother.

“No, I don’t need money! I’m not dependent on _you_ for that, unlike some people!” He glared at the bedroom again.

“I was only asking,” Oswald said, settling back into his armchair with his coffee cup, pouting.

“I’m just bored,” Ed said, forcing himself to stop being so obvious and turn back to face him. He squinted. “Are you sitting funny?”

Ed couldn’t be sure in the firelight if Oswald flushed or not, but he certainly flustered a little before rolling his eyes. “No, I am not _sitting funny_, for heaven’s sake.” He lifted his cup, speaking into it to hide his face. “Don’t be vulgar.”

Ed huffed, almost steaming at the thought of Oswald… He had no objection of course to Oswald engaging in sexual pleasures but the thought of it, of Eric, well, _pounding_ him so hard it pained him to sit… Ed didn’t like that, not one bit. Even if Oswald liked it like that, Ed didn’t approve.

“I _wasn’t_, I was just wondering if perhaps your leg was paining you. Sometimes they do, first thing, these old injuries.” Ed had a few himself that liked to twinge in the cold or the rain, and he suspected Oswald’s leg troubled him more than he let on, given how inexplicably foul his moods could be on bad weather days, and he didn’t trust Eric to be make allowances.

Oswald put his hand to his knee, looking like he’d done it without thinking. “Oh. No. My leg is as well as it ever is.”

“How long has this been going on anyway?” Ed tipped his head at the bedroom door.

Oswald sighed. “I can see it’s unsettled you-”

“I’m not _unsettled_-”

“But Eric is harmless. He follows my every command. He doesn’t have it in him to get up to anything. He’s not like you and me.” Oswald smiled, and Ed knew he was trying to flatter him.

It worked. The reminder of his intelligence and ambition and determination that set him apart from the masses soothed his ruffled feathers, and he huffed, letting it go. He certainly believed that Eric had nothing to offer in the way of insight or drive.

“Do you really _like_ him, Oswald?” Ed asked, the words coming out before he realised, but it was that which he was struggling with after all. How could Oswald give himself, share himself, with such a… nothing? When he had loved Ed, who was so much more? The Penguin he knew had more ambition than that.

“I like things about him,” Oswald replied.

“Such as?” Really, what did Eric have to offer that Ed-? The answer popped up in his quick mind. Sex. Sex was what Eric offered that Ed never had, but it burned to think that that was enough to satisfy Oswald, who was never satisfied by anything less than the best, the most.

“He gives me what I want, and I like to get what I want.” Oswald smirked as if Ed could empathise with this, but still it bothered him. People like them should be with other people like them. Oswald should be with someone like- someone like Freeze (No, too stupid) or Tetch (God no, far too unhinged). If Galavan was still alive, maybe him… But even then, no one would ever understand Oswald like Ed did. No one would ever care about him like Ed did. They had too much history.

Really, looking at the other options, he couldn’t blame Oswald for falling in love with him when he did.

“So what about this bank then?” said Oswald when Ed didn’t return from his thoughts.

“Let’s do the museum. I’m sick of banks.”

They got the frame of a plan together, then Oswald left to wash and dress, ordering breakfast and coffee for Ed. It was a pleasant day, strategizing with Oswald, not that Ed couldn’t rob a museum by himself. In some ways, it was even easier to do it by himself, but he needed the excuse to stay in the citadel and keep Oswald busy with something actually worth his time, instead of that gigolo.

And so the days passed. Oswald lent him some men for the heist, it went off without a hitch. Oswald got his share in the jewels that Ed cared nothing for, while he took the more interesting artefacts for his own collection. That necessitated a relocation of hide-out and a period of some laying low while Gotham PD spun their wheels, but once the museum got their insurance pay-out, the pressure dropped, and Gordon was forced to redirect his attention to other more pressing crimes, such as a fresh string of grisly murders happening uptown.

When Ed deemed it safe, he left his lair and went to pay Oswald a visit. It had been a little over a week, and Ed was looking forward to seeing him again. They hadn’t had a chance to congratulate themselves on a job well done yet, the risk being too high, but knowing the lens of scrutiny was off him again, Ed almost skipped up the steps to Oswald’s home.

This time it was not too early. It was just after lunch, and Oswald had always been an early-starter, being such an industrious, greedy little bird, so he should have found him in his office working. Instead all he found was a couple of henchmen slipping past with boxes in their arms. Ed retraced their steps to Oswald’s suite. Perhaps he was finishing a late lunch. Once again the curtains were drawn and a fire was burning in the grate. The bedroom doors were open, but he couldn’t see anyone in the sitting room. He started to walk to the bedroom, but as he passed the sofa he jumped, spotting Oswald lying there in his robe under a blanket, his hair unstyled and dark circles under his eyes telling Ed he hadn’t put his make-up on yet.

He looked up at Ed, then looked away, shifting uncomfortably under his blanket.

“Oswald! Are you sick?” Ed sat in the armchair.

“Go away, Ed, I’m not in the mood,” Oswald mumbled.

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Ed looked over his shoulder at one of the heavies carrying a suitcase out of the bedroom. He looked back at Oswald pointedly, but Oswald just looked away and wriggled deeper into the sofa.

“Is it Eric?” It didn’t take a genius to figure it out when Oswald’s bedroom was clearly the centre of attention.

Oswald drew the blanket higher on his chest.

Ed sighed. “Oswald, you can talk to me…”

“I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so,’ not now.”

“I would never-”

“You do it all the time!”

“Yes, alright, I do, but not to hurt you! Never that… or not recently anyway.”

“I’ve just decided to end Eric’s employment with me, that’s all,” he sniffed, picking at a loose thread.

“…You don’t seem very happy about it,” Ed said.

Oswald opened his mouth to answer, but at that point Eric rushed in, frantic. He ran through to the bedroom then immediately out again. “Ozzie, please-”

“Don’t call me that!” Oswald yelled, his expression twisting into a sneer.

“Oz-”

“_I said don’t call me that!_” He picked up an ornament from the coffee table and hurled it at Eric, forcing him to duck. “It’s Penguin to you!”

“Alright, I’m sorry, Penguin… Just- Please don’t kick me out. Let me try again, I can do better, we can-”

“I refuse to talk about this! Can’t you see I have company? I’ve made my decision, now get out!”

Eric foolishly took a step forward, his hands out, imploring. “But Penguin-”

“_Get out!_” Oswald shrieked, spittle flying, sitting up with the force of his scream.

“I’d do it,” Ed advised. He couldn’t help himself.

Eric flicked him a dark glance, but to his credit he stood his ground. “Can I at least keep the clothes?”

Oswald deflated, settling for a glare. “You can keep everything I gave you, but if you ever talk about me to anyone, or I ever see your face again, I will cripple you, do you understand?”

Eric nodded.

“Good. You can wait for your things outside on the curb.” Oswald collapsed back on the sofa, his arms folded across his chest and his face turned to the fire, the conversation over.

Eric hesitated, but ultimately made the smart decision and left.

Ed let the fire’s crackling fill the silence for a moment. He wasn’t going to let Oswald wallow in misery though, not over Eric. “So.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on, Oswald, we’re friends, aren’t we? Isn’t this what friends do? Talk about these things?”

He stayed stubbornly silent, staring into the fire.

“It’s hardly the first time. I was there for you when your mother died when we barely knew one another, and you were there for me when Isabella died, one way or another.” His lips twisted in a small smile of gallows humour. “Just tell me what happened, so I know whether I need to kill him or not.”

“I don’t want you to kill him,” Oswald mumbled.

“Well, that’s not quite your choice, is it? Just as it wasn’t my choice when you killed my girlfriend.” He was not in the habit of gently teasing information from someone in a caring, friendly way. He was much more used to pulling teeth in the literal sense. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“Do you think I will mock you? I promise I won’t.”

Still nothing.

“Oswald. I want to know.” He could see he was wearing him down, indecision starting to play on Oswald’s face. “I’ll ask nicely but I won’t beg. You can’t stop me hunting him down and beating it out of him if you won’t tell me yourself.”

“Oh, alright!” Oswald huffed, throwing up his hands. Ed was slightly annoyed that that threat had worked, Oswald willing to give up even this harmless tidbit to keep his now ex-lover safe. He should have left him to his fate. “Let’s just say he… failed in his duties to me.”

That could mean anything. Ed scrolled through sexual acts in his head, all of them involving Oswald. He had spent an unprecedented amount of time doing that lately. “Care to elaborate?”

“We were… _in bed together_…” Oswald said, over-enunciating as if he was literally spelling it out, his fingers pinching and twisting the blanket as his eyes did everything to avoid Ed’s. “And he… lost his… _enthusiasm_.”

Ed crooked an eyebrow as he understood. “Oh I see. How unfortunate. Far be it from me to defend… _him_,” Ed said, discarding the plethora of insults that begged to be spoken instead. “But is that a fireable offence? I thought you were enjoying him. And I hear that it happens sometimes.”

Oswald folded his arms again. “He hurt my feelings,” he sulked.

Oh, Oswald, always a victim to his _feelings_. Ed reached out and put a hand to his leg, the bone hard under the fuzzy blanket. He rubbed with his thumb absently, and Oswald’s eyes jumped to the movement. “Well, I am sorry he hurt your feelings. He was a fool. Did he say anything?”

Oswald shifted under the blanket, and Ed knew there was more. “He made it clear that… parts of me… presented an… obstacle. It would have been a recurring difficulty.”

Ed kept petting Oswald’s leg, but he had felt his face grow cold and rigid. “What did he say?”

Oswald thrashed his leg free from Ed’s hand. “I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it may not have occurred to you yet what I look like naked, and I don’t intend to paint a picture for you!”

Ed sucked in a breath. “He found you unattractive? I’m sorry.”

Oswald just shrugged, offering no argument. “It was my leg. The position we were in… I suppose he got a good long look at it.”

Lava ran in Ed’s veins. He knew Oswald’s furious upward mobility was often in answer to a deeply but secretly-held low self-esteem. Normally, Ed didn’t care. It was fuel to Oswald’s fire, and he may not have survived without it, certainly he wouldn’t have climbed as high as he did if he was not constantly striving to prove his detractors wrong. He had once tried to make Oswald believe that Ed saw him differently, but that had led to the love confession, and after everything _that_ had led to, he had considered it wise not to repeat the exercise.

But he couldn’t let this continue, not if he could offer a hand up out of the dark morass he was currently stuck in. Let Oswald believe that the world was full of enemies, but Ed would not let him believe that his injury was repulsive.

Ed stood and grabbed Oswald’s bent leg by the ankle, pulling it and the blanket up to sit, replacing it in his lap. Oswald’s other leg was pinned behind him against the sofa back and the blanket was all twisted and folded, but it would do.

“Ed! What-?!” Oswald tried to fight free but Ed kept his hand on his ankle, his foot pointing away at ninety degrees. His hand had somehow landed on his bare skin, exposed between the cuff of his pyjamas and his slipper. Ed could feel against his palm the fleshless bones, the tendons strained tight by the damaged alignment.

“You are not ugly, Oswald.”

He huffed. “Oh please, the only person to call me handsome was my mother, and I’m old enough now to realise that was probably a white lie.”

“No. She believed that because she loved you, she saw your potential and your greatness, and this leg is a part of that too. There is nothing wrong with it. Eric couldn’t see that because he couldn’t see you, not as you are, not the whole of you.” With one hand on Oswald’s knee, safe over blanket and silk pyjamas, Ed nevertheless slid his other hand up his leg, baring his calf, his white skin and black hair. “Not as I do.”

“Ed, you don’t have to-” Oswald tried to laugh him off, forcing it as he tried to pull away, but Ed held him in place.

“Oswald, please. I thought we had at least agreed that we understand each other. Give me that much. I understand you. I know you as no one else. We have accepted that we don’t want to hurt each other anymore, haven’t we? Therefore, you don’t have to be afraid of whatever you think might happen.”

He squeezed Oswald’s leg, testing both the give in his skin, and himself. Could he touch Oswald like this? He had never tried. He enjoyed their hugs. He enjoyed the closeness of his body then, the solid realness of it. He enjoyed the feeling of being understood, welcomed, and treasured, when he normally expected horror and rejection. He was a killer after all, and he was proud of himself for that, but he didn’t expect other people to be. But he and Oswald were so similar in so many ways, and so far, no negative emotion or instinct had risen in him in response to touching his bare skin. He wouldn’t say he felt nothing, but it felt… Comfortable. Normal. Pleasant.

The cant of Oswald’s broken and healed knee and the subsequent turn of his foot didn’t bother him at all. His fingertips mapped the deep pinks scars from the initial injury, and then a handful more, including Gordon’s bullet. So few of the wounds had been properly treated, but then, Ed was also riddled with scars from hasty back-alley surgeries and tortures.

“I know what will happen.” Oswald said. “You will take this as far as you can, which won’t be very far, and recoil, finding the answer to your little experiment.” His voice was almost hurt, and his whole body was tense as he forced himself to lie still for whatever Ed was doing to him.

“Experiment?” Oswald certainly had his number. Even as Ed spoke of how they understood each other, it still surprised him when Oswald read him so easily, reaching in and cracking him open without ceremony or mercy, allowing no performance or theatrics. “Maybe, but I don’t conduct experiments I expect to fail, Oswald.” He dared to push his fingers higher, edging over Oswald’s knee to the soft inside of his thigh, keeping his touch light.

“Edward, please… Don’t.”

“No? You don’t want this? Your feelings for me are gone, erased by… _that cheap imitation_? You’ve had your fill?”

“I… It was never… I had to have something, didn’t I? If we were to be friends, I had to have something.”

Ed almost growled. “You dressed him like me. You let him fuck you dressed like me.”

“I’m sorry, Ed… if that made you uncomfortable, I-I shouldn’t have done it…”

“It made me _incensed_.” He pushed his hand higher, baring half of Oswald’s thigh suddenly, soft and quivering like fish meat. His touch was not so light anymore, and Oswald’s whole body jerked, spine snapping straight.

“_Disgusted!_ I know! I’m sorry, but please… Don’t torment me like this. Please, not like this.”

“Not disgusted, _jealous_! That you asked that- that unremarkable _pleb_ to touch you instead of me!”

“It cost me everything the first time, I wasn’t going to make that mistake again!”

The leg of Oswald’s pyjamas was bunched up tight, knotted with the blanket that pooled on his lap, not allowing Ed’s hand to travel any further. Oswald had twisted onto his side at some point, and one of Ed’s hand still held his ankle, keeping his leg on his lap.

Oswald had called it an experiment. Ed didn’t think he’d received a conclusive answer. If he was to complete this experiment, he knew where he had to touch him. He moved his hand to the outside of Oswald’s pyjamas, tracing over the rucked fabric slowly, higher and higher. Just before he reached the top of his leg, Oswald’s hands jumped to his wrist, stopping him.

They stared at each other.

“It was _my_ mistake,” Ed whispered.

“Don’t do this if you don’t mean it,” Oswald whispered back. “Don’t do that to me.”

“Has so much changed between us? Is it all gone?”

“You tell me. Do you love me, Edward?”

Ed tried. He wanted to say yes, but he just couldn’t. “I… have always been more cerebral than carnal, Oswald. I am not an emotive or effusive person, but… There is no one that I respect and admire more. There is no one I can rely on... that I would trust with my life, more than you. I know now that I won’t give you to anyone else. You and I belong together, one way or another.”

“One way or another is not how I feel about you, Ed. I know how I feel about you.” There were tears in Oswald’s eyes. “If you are not attracted to men, then it won’t work, and I don’t want what happened with Eric to happen with you, it would kill me.”

Ed bent and kissed Oswald’s bare knee. “No, Penguin, you never let me kill you. You would survive as you always do.”

“You know what I mean…”

“I know. Let me find out. Let me touch you, and find out. Please, Oswald. This is new to me but I’ve come this far, surely that counts for something? Or will it always be a wound between us?”

Slowly, his hands relaxed by increments, allowing Ed to proceed. Oswald was still not looking at him, and Ed was grateful. It made it slightly easier to focus as he reached under the blanket and his fingers brushed silk overlaid on hot flesh between Oswald’s legs, making him twitch and his breath catch. As Ed prodded tentatively, trying to feel a shape, he realised he had found Oswald’s balls, and moved higher. His fingers bumped into a hard protrusion, the heat unbelievable. Oswald’s erection. He wasn’t fully hard, but it was too much of a reaction to deny or play off. He was aroused by Ed’s hand on him. Ed curved his hand around him and squeezed gently.

Oswald shuddered. “Okay, is that enough?”

“Not nearly,” Ed breathed.

Oswald whimpered. “How far are you planning on taking this?”

“As far as I can.” He used both hands now to pull Oswald’s waistband down, everything still covered by the blanket. It was an illusion of privacy, a veil between them, the same way Oswald avoided it eyes. This would not create indelible memories to torment them afterwards if it all went wrong. This could be gotten over, they told themselves.

Oswald’s erection tented the blanket, and Ed reached underneath, almost like a doctor, and wrapped his hand around it. It pulsed hot and satin-soft, and still no part of Ed was repulsed. In fact, a hot flush raced over his skin, and his own trousers were starting to feel too small. He pulled up, stroking over Oswald’s cock, the head bumping through his hand, and Oswald sucked in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut.

Suddenly, Ed was sure – about what he wanted and how to get it. Experiment complete. He could imagine himself doing this, he _was_ doing it! He could touch Oswald intimately, and he could imagine taking him in his mouth, placing his hands on his bare chest.

With his free hand, he found Oswald’s wrist, and gently pulled it to between his legs, pressing it into his own swelling arousal. Oswald blinked, then looked down at his hand.

“Ed, are you-?”

“Look at me, Oswald.” Ed turned him on his back with a hand on his shoulder, and with a quick adjustment of Oswald’s thighs around his hips, Ed twisted his body and suddenly found himself between his legs in the conjugal sense. Oswald stared up at him, lips parted, eyes incredulous, and squeezed his handful of Ed’s cock, making a shiver ripple over him. Ed put his hands on the sofa arm either side of Oswald’s head and braced his arms before lowering slowly, slowly down. His heart raced with uncertainty and wasn’t that a funny feeling? Uncertainty? Still, after how he had hurt Oswald, he couldn’t be sure he would be willing to take a chance on Ed again. But he tilted his head and Oswald didn’t stop him as he pressed their lips together in a kiss.

He pulled away, and Oswald said “Ed?”

“Do you trust me, Oswald?”

“I…” Ed could see the hesitation, and it hurt. There was a time Oswald would have been able to answer immediately. “Yes.”

Ed didn’t know how true that was. He thought Oswald probably just wanted it to be true, was forcing it to be true, or maybe his trust was stronger than his distrust. Maybe Oswald only trusted him 90%, but Ed knew he could prove himself again, make Oswald fall in love with him again, until he was just crazy with it.

When he kissed him again, Oswald’s hands started to fumble and tug at his belt, and Ed let him. He got Ed’s belt undone and his pants open and then he pulled Ed’s cock free, pumping it to full hardness. He pulled the blanket out from between them and jerked Ed’s hips against his. Oswald moaned loudly, his kiss frantic, teeth nibbling and tongue licking and lips working as if making up for lost time, or trying to consume as much of Ed as he could before he was taken away again.

Ed leaned into him and slowed him down, rearranging his weight so their bones weren’t grinding together as much. He lined their cocks up, which he guessed was Oswald’s objective, and tested a few thrusts, which made Oswald buck his hips up against him. This was tolerable, this was very tolerable. With Ed setting the pace, Oswald gradually caught on, slowing until he sighed against Ed’s cheek. Confident now that he _could_ break away, Ed lifted his head.

“Is this alright?” he asked Oswald. Ed, after all, had never been with a man before, whereas Oswald had, as he’d been having his nose rubbed in for the last two weeks.

“Mm-mm, yes, good,” Oswald replied, his eyes hooded and that slightly dazed, sated look he sometimes got when things were going his way.

But Ed… Ed had no idea what he was doing, not really. His time with Kristen and Isabella had not prepared him for this. He grunted in frustration and moved Oswald’s hand down between their stomachs, stopping his thrusts and giving him space. “I need your help,” he said succinctly, and Oswald, to his credit, took over without comment, his hands gathering their cocks together and smoothly running up and down, squeezing at the right point, twisting gently, with just the right pressure. Ed’s breath came faster. Oswald was good at this, and the alien feeling of another cock on his, _leaking_ against his, provided a raw animal connection he couldn’t dominate with logic.

Oswald was the only one he would ever willingly cede control to.

Ed’s rational mind recognised the mechanism of it, the up-down motion pushing him towards a sensory threshold, a physical response, and it also recognised its own powerlessness to stop it. He couldn’t catch his breath, he couldn’t stop his hips from thrusting, he couldn’t simply wait for the inevitable income, he had to chase, chase, chase… But he had long ago got sick of waiting for what would be given to him in favour of taking what he wanted.

It was not smooth or graceful. Their positions on the couch, the fact that Ed was still dressed, the tangled blanket made them an ungainly pile of limbs bumping and rolling together, but elegance was not required here, and soon they were coming, Ed with a tooth-cracking clench of his jaw and twist of his neck, Oswald with a choked gasp as if he had been stabbed or just surfaced from the bay.

When Ed could move again, he looked down. It was a messy affair. He hadn’t seen who shot where, but there was come soaking into his green silk jacket, and held up by the woolly fibres of the blanket. He leaned back, pulling himself out of Oswald’s hands. He tidied his hair with his hands as Oswald covered himself back up, then followed, tucking his cock away and zipping back up.

“Well, then,” he said a little awkwardly.

“That was unexpected,” Oswald agreed, awkwardly pushing himself up and untangling his legs from around Ed to put his feet on the floor. They sat for a moment, the rush dissipating, a clock ticking somewhere and the fire banked.

Ed knew it would be easy to panic, question himself, rush out of there, pretend it never happened… and hurt Oswald. He knew that was what Oswald expected him to do, even now. And then how long until the next Eric? It would be harder to stay, to face it, to build something… to be honest about his feelings and take the chance and allow Oswald closer to him than anyone ever had been.

He reached across and squeezed Oswald’s hand. “Why don’t you go get dressed, love? This isn’t like you, moping about over- over gutter trash. The Penguin has higher concerns, and is something of a peacock, I suspect. I’ll be here when you come out and we can… we can get lunch, then think about doing something dastardly,” he grinned.

Oswald studied him for a moment, and Ed knew he wasn’t off the hook that easily, but then he nodded, and stood, shaking his pyjamas back down his legs. “Alright, _love_,” he said, and in that one word was a promise, a promise to hold Ed to account, and within that was a threat. As Penguin walked away to his bedroom, Ed smiled. He wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
